Top 11 non-Drupal business events to attend in 2019
Each year, there’s a plethora of various tech and business events all over the world, even if we disregard the numerous Drupal events. In fact, there are so many of these conferences dispersed throughout Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific region that you can never even dream of attending all of them (in some cases, you’d actually need some kind of time machine!). But how do you find the ones that you or your agency would really profit from attending?
At Agiledrop, we’ve been asking ourselves the same question. Even though some of the biggest tech conferences of 2019 have already taken place (e.g. January’s CES which took place in Las Vegas), this doesn’t mean that you or your agency have to miss out on great networking and business opportunities at such gatherings. With spring already begun, there’s a huge number of relevant events you can (and should!) check out.
For this reason, we’ve done some research and have attempted to make a more narrow list of the absolutely-don’t-miss tech and business events from March until the end of 2019. This narrowing down is also the reason why we decided to exclude all the Drupal events - we believe the community is already pretty well informed on these, but perhaps not so much on non-Drupal ones.
We hope you’ll be able to make a more informed decision after reading our list. Best case scenario - you won’t have to convince your boss as vehemently after telling them about all the benefits of specific events and all the amazing speakers you would miss.
So, without further ado, here’s a list of events for agencies to attend in 2019 that stood out to our team the most.
1. OutBound (April 23-26, Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
With over 1200 yearly attendees from all over the globe and a lineup of renowned professional speakers, OutBound is one of the hottest Sales conferences you can attend.
Such a high number of prestigious speakers coupled with the huge focus on catering to the audience make OutBound the perfect event for sales executives or even entire sales teams to attend.
Among this year’s speakers are Bob Burg, with the sales total for his books on sales, marketing and influence well exceeding 1.5 million copies; Meridith Elliott Powell, featured sales expert for the LinkedIn Learning Platform and award-winning author, keynote speaker and business strategist; Anthony Iannarino, another acclaimed international speaker and bestselling author; and many others.
For the full list of speakers and information on tickets and accommodation, see the event’s website.
2. Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo 2019 (April 29-May 1, San Diego, California, USA)
Gartner’s Marketing Symposium/Xpo is an event dedicated mostly to marketers, particularly CMOs and other marketing leaders. You’ll get a chance to network and exchange ideas with over 1,500 like-minded attendees, as well as expand your professional experience.
Marketing is a field where trends are constantly shifting and evolving, and one must remain vigilant and keep track of the latest technologies and practices. The 2019 symposium aims to help with exactly that; with the sessions covering a whole range of marketing topics, attendees will have a greater insight into the different trends and consequently will be better equipped to tackle change when it comes (and it will come!).
Perhaps the most appealing thing about Gartner’s event are the exhibitors. Next to major players such as Adobe and Salesforce you’ll also find the leading Drupal company, Acquia!
Check out the event’s website for a full list of exhibitors, speakers, schedules for each day and pretty much anything else you might want to know about.
3. The Next Web Conference (May 9-10, Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
TNW Conference is one of the leading events in Europe celebrating technological innovation. This year will mark the 15th consecutive edition of the conference; over the past 15 years, the event has grown from only about 200 to over 17,500 attendees for each day, making it one of the biggest European tech conferences.
The topics and sessions of TNW Conference are quite broad; anyone working in any kind of tech industry will surely find something for themselves. Topics range from marketing, business, digital product development, emerging technologies, women in tech, commerce, and many more.
This year’s speakers include: Gordon Willoughby, CEO of WeTransfer; Gillian Tans, CEO of Booking; Chris Slowe, CTO of Reddit; … you know what? There are too many awesome ones to list them all - check them out for yourself here!
4. Mirren Live New York (May 14-15, New York City, New York, USA)
Also dubbed the “agency growth conference”, Mirren Live New York is the perfect event for agencies to attend. It is a chance to meet representatives from numerous globally-recognized names and learn the latest agency trends.
Their website claims that this year’s lineup is “killer” - and that’s a pretty appropriate description. Just quickly going through the list, we don’t even know where to start - we might as well just list them all. So, go ahead and see the whole list for yourself.
In case you really do want to catch all the sessions, or prefer leveraging your presence there to make new business connections, it’s also possible to purchase access to the broadcast of most of the sessions. This is also ideal for anyone who won’t be able to make it but also won’t want to miss the speakers.
5. Adobe Summit EMEA (15-16 May, London, UK)
This is the EMEA version of the Adobe Summit, with the North American equivalent taking place this weekend. The focus of the event is on experience marketing - an area that’s becoming more and more relevant, with customers’ and users’ increasing demand for (unforgettable) experiences.
Still, it is an event that will inspire anyone working in marketing. You can personalize your weekend by choosing between more than 120 sessions by fascinating speakers, among whom are Senior Vice President at Magento and Adobe, Mark Lavelle; Digital Project Manager at Capgemini, Kelly Derickx; Vice President EMEA at Twitter, Bruce Daisley; and countless more.
If you or your company use Adobe products, attending is almost a must, as you’ll get first-hand insights into Adobe’s latest technologies and practices in experience marketing. Here you can check the reasons for attending, with a bonus email template for more easily convincing your boss.
6. AA-ISP Digital Sales World (different dates and locations)
AA-ISP (The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals) is a global association focusing on Inside Sales. Each year, they organize their one-day Digital Sales World event with four different dates and locations. This is great news for everyone wanting to attend - you have four options to pick from, which ensures that you won’t miss out.
The dates are the following:
- May 14, London, UK
- June 13, Dallas, Texas, USA
- September 12, Norwood, Massachusetts, USA
- December 3, Dublin, Ireland
It is a digital sales world conference where sales leaders and other industry experts come together for a day packed with learning, networking and getting to know new sales tools and technologies.
A lot of the speakers are already known; judging from these lineups, it’ll be hard to decide on a single instance to attend. You can check out the main page of the event to get more information and make a more informed choice.
7. SaaStr Europa (June 12-13, Paris, France)
Even though SaaStr Annual in San Francisco already took place in February, you still have plenty of time to plan for and attend the European variant of the event. 2018 was the inaugural year for SaaStr Europa, and it returns to Paris in 2019 with double the content and almost double the number of attendees compared with last year.
SaaStr Europa is thus the perfect opportunity to learn from and network with a wide range of SaaS experts from all over the world. The impressive lineup of speakers includes Christina Bechhold Russ, Principal at Samsung NEXT; Jane Kim, VP of Revenue at CircleCI; the co-founder of Saastr, Jason Lemkin; and many others.
For a full list of speakers, sponsors and more information on tickets, visit the event site itself.
8. MozCon (July 15-17, Seattle, Washington, USA)
MozCon is a conference organized by the SEO-centric company Moz. As a consequence, the event puts great emphasis on SEO; but, more broadly, it’s an event for any kind of marketer, exploring topics such as branding, user and customer experience, analytics, and content marketing.
The 2019 speakers list features a number of Moz employees, such as CEO Sarah Bird, and other industry experts, such as Head of PR & Content at Aira, Shannon McGuirk. You can check out the full list here.
So - you definitely won’t want to miss MozCon. No matter where in the digital sphere you’re positioned, SEO is a field you’ll always have to keep up-to-date with. Add to that the impressive lineup of speakers and the unique opportunity to connect with leading industry experts and agencies, and you know where you’ll be going this July.
9. INBOUND (September 3-6, Boston, Massachusetts, USA)
INBOUND is HubSpot’s annual conference for sales and marketing enthusiasts. It is an event that puts emphasis on human interaction, where attendees view each other as peers rather than competition, and consequently help each other learn and improve.
The speakers at INBOUND’s sessions are perhaps the highlight of the conference. While speakers for 2019 have not yet been announced, previous years’ speakers include names such as Michelle Obama, Deepak Chopra and Gary Vaynerchuk.
Besides all the educational sessions, INBOUND also offers attendees non-business entertainment with performers such as Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer. The agenda for this year has yet to be announced; we’ll make sure to update this post with fresh information. Meanwhile, you can find out more about INBOUND here.
10. Dreamforce (November 19-22, San Francisco, California, USA)
Dreamforce is the annual event of the American cloud-based software company Salesforce. Its roots going back as far as 2003, Dreamforce was one of the early B2B conferences - and a relatively small one, at that, with just over 1000 attendees.
Fast forward a little more than 15 years and Dreamforce is one of the largest B2B events in the world, boasting almost 200,000 attendees and over 2,000 sessions in 2018.
Even if you don’t use Salesforce or any other cloud products, with such an abundance of options, you’ll definitely find something for you. At the very least, you’ll have the one-of-a-kind opportunity to connect with some of the biggest names in the digital industry and forge new business relationships.
You’ve definitely heard of companies such as IBM, Deloitte Digital and Accenture. Well, these are just the tip of the iceberg of Dreamforce’s sponsors. Additionally, going through the list of last year’s speakers, you’ll stumble upon names such as Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post and Thrive Global; Oscar Munoz, CEO at United Airlines; and even Al Gore, former US vice president and known environmentalist.
If you’re still not convinced, check out Dreamforce’s official site for any additional information. You can even calculate the ROI of attending to make a better case to your boss!
11. The Drum Awards
The Drum is Europe’s largest marketing platform, so their annual awards are definitely the place to meet the cream of leading industry professionals. It is a chance for outstanding businesses to get their deserved recognition, which also helps them attract new talented employees.
What’s really great about The Drum’s awards is that they showcase success in all areas of digital and marketing, enabling you to cherry-pick the ones you want to attend and/or the ones most relevant to your position and interest.
You can view a full list of the awards here. So far, only the dates for the Marketing Awards ceremonies are known:
- Europe: April 3, London, UK
- USA: April 11, New York City, New York
We’ll make sure to update the list as soon as the dates and locations are announced. Meanwhile, you can get a better feel of The Drum Awards by checking out the highlights from last year’s marketing award ceremony.
Honorable mentions
Some of the don’t-miss events of 2019 have already taken place, such as the already mentioned CES. We also refrained from including events that are happening this weekend, as it would be pretty much impossible to book tickets and/or flights at this point. Nonetheless, we wanted to at least mention them, so you know which ones to be on the lookout for next year:
These were the non-Drupal-related events and conferences in 2019 that we found to be the most appealing. We hope this blog post sheds some light on which of these events you would benefit from attending so that you’ll be able to plan accordingly. We’ll update any lacking parts when more information is released.
